Sabbath Keeping: Finding Freedom in the Rhythms of Rest

Lynne M. Baab’s Sabbath Keeping chronicles the Baab family’s twenty-five years of sabbath rest. The blessings of honoring the sabbath no longer need only belong to the Jewish and Muslim traditions: every Christian can benefit from honoring the sabbath.

Stay-home mom, ordained minister, professional writer and teacher, Lynne M. Baab not only honed her message over time, but presents it in a teacher-as-servant-of-all way. Never Bible bashing, always with the reader’s best interest in mind, Baab details the difficulties and triumphs of her family’s sabbath traditions. Honestly conveying the counter cultural nature of this movement and the need for support, Baab lays out guidelines anyone can follow. Each chapter ends with questions for discussion, reflection, and journaling, as well as a prayer. The appendix has traditional Jewish prayers and blessings, which the author in hindsight wishes she had used when her children were young.

A modern-day classic written with such elegance and clarity, if you glean nothing from the subject matter you can see how a book is meant to be written. With inset quotes from average sabbath keepers to rabbis and theologians, Baab’s message is taken from the where the people live not high and lofty ideals. Baab writes, “My workweek is dominated by generating words. Words which I speak on the phone, in meetings and in public. Words I speak to God in intercessory prayers … On the sabbath I need freedom from producing words, both spoken and written … I take time to notice the beauty of the world, thanking God in a wordless way for the wonder of his gifts to us.”

This unassuming book draws you into its heart to commune with the author, conveying heart-felt truths, not just theories. It is high time the Christian message said “Stop, rest, be in His presence.” I highly recommend this book for all who are followers of Christ--it can change your life. -- Suzanne Rae Deshchidn, Christian Book Previews.com

Book Jacket:

Let's give ourselves an A for effort.

We keep our minds so preoccupied with work projects that we act and
think on autopilot.

We keep our kids so occupied with activities that they need day planners
before grade school.

We keep our schedules so full with church meetings and housekeeping
and even entertaining that down-time sounds like a mortal sin.

When we fail to rest we do more than burn ourselves out. We misunderstand
the God who calls us to rest--who created us to be people of rest. Let's
face it: our rest needs work.

Sabbath recalls our creation, and with it God's satisfaction with us as he made us, without our hurried wrangling and harried worrying. It also recalls God's deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt, and with it God's ability to do completely what we cannot complete in ourselves. Sabbath keeping reminds us that we are free to rest each week.

Eighteen months in Tel Aviv, Israel, where a weekly sabbath is built into the culture, began Lynne M. Baab's twenty-five-year embrace of a rhythm of rest--as a stay-at-home mom, as a professional writer working out of her home and as a minister of the gospel. With collected insights from sabbath keepers of all ages and backgrounds, Sabbath Keeping offers a practical and hopeful guidebook for all of us to slow down and enjoy our relationship with the God of the universe.